The Image of God

[Johnny Pneumatic]

When someone says the word "god" what mental image pops into your head? With me it's the Old Testament bearded and bald old man, or just the word god.

[Phil]

George Burns

[Lord Emsworth]

It alternates between that anthropomorphic OT-dude and unseizable nothingness.

[c4ts]

For some reason, I get the mental image of this three headed thing I drew in third grade.

[Marquis de Carabas]

I see
http://nhl.speedera.net/photos/g/gretzky_cup1984.jpg

[toddjh]

Originally posted by c4ts
For some reason, I get the mental image of this three headed thing I drew in third grade.

Funny, the image I get is like one of the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are. What's that all about?

Jeremy

[burgerjockey]

I get an image of a giant stone throne with sandle clad feet. Also, plenty of clouds or some sort of mist.

[RussDill]

Stuff like this:

http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/images/00/shallagh.2

[lifegazer]

6 billion people in a huddle, happy beyond description.

[Cosmo]

I usually think of the standard cloud-surrounded bearded old white guy, but I always see him as being spitting mad about the (growing) number of people who don't even think he exists. :D

[Xeriar]

I prefer the image of a woman, myself. Looks cuter :-)

[Johnny Pneumatic]

What I think is curious about my imagining god as looking very much like santa, or Daniel Dennett, is I wasn't raised being told god looked like anything, which if "he" were real would be true. I seem to have picked up the image since I became an atheist. The Old Testicle has god basically descibed as such. Most of my bible reading has been since deconverting so this might be why.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by lifegazer
6 billion people in a huddle, happy beyond description.

That's an contraditory statement for me.

I picture an ill-tempered spoiled brat disguised as flaming shrubbery.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Originally posted by lifegazer
6 billion people in a huddle, happy beyond description.

Even orgies can have to many people.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Piscivore
That's an contraditory statement for me.

I picture an ill-tempered spoiled brat disguised as flaming shrubbery.
Whatever you see within yourself, is yourself.

[geni]

None.

[Aoidoi]

I gotta go with the toddler from Yuyu Hakusho (sp?).

It explains so much. ;)

[c4ts]

Originally posted by lifegazer
6 billion people in a huddle, happy beyond description.

Or scared out of their wits, as long as they're all doing what everybody else is doing.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by c4ts
Or scared out of their wits, as long as they're all doing what everybody else is doing.
That's the present state of affairs, mate.
Welcome to the world of institutionalised man.
Know thyself.

[Z]

Martha Steward in red leather. Or the big, dopey Chinese guy from Mulan.

BTW

Chances are, if there were a 'huddle' of 6 billion people, I sincerely doubt they'd be happy beyond belief... More like, starving, dirty, disease-ridden, psychotic...

[c4ts]

Originally posted by lifegazer
That's the present state of affairs, mate.
Welcome to the world of institutionalised man.
Know thyself.

No, it's not the present state of affairs. They're all blowing each other up.

Institutions that define themselves as being right while everybody else is wrong are going to get into fights all the time.

[Bruce]

I'm actually surprised no one has done this yet:

http://www.softdoc.es/guia_madrid/comer/imagenes/taco.jpg

[neutrino_cannon]

http://images.google.com/images?q=God&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&tab=wi

As for me:

http://home.att.net/~vintz/B-Patty.JPG

[riverlethe]

I don't know where people get the idea of a bearded man with male pattern baldness. Citations, please? :P

I usually picture an illustration of this scene:

Ezekiel 1:26-28, “Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.�

[H3LL]

I get a mental picture of many, many people suffering and controlled and not understanding why?

Is that a meme?

I seem unable to picture a physical creature. I just can't.

[H3LL]

I had to post again and my apologies for a slight derail...

I did a quick image Google for god and saw this:

http://stefan.pader.de/gifs/god%20put%20a%20smile%20uon%20my%20face.jpg

Laugh?...I haven't stopped yet :D

[Filippo Lippi]

I see this photo of the great Jimmy Sirrell celebrating Notts County's promotion to Division One back in 1981. http://www.supernotts.com/images/Notts/Eighties/81Sirrell.jpg

[BillyJoe]

Or Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) from the bearded seventies...

http://www.cupofwonder.com/IsleOfWight.jpg

[RussDill]

http://akian.free.fr/images/chtulu/cthulhu.jpg

[Marquis de Carabas]

Russ,

So is your image of God Cthulhu, or is your image of God some poor schmo being dropped to his death by Cthulhu?

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
Russ,

So is your image of God Cthulhu, or is your image of God some poor schmo being dropped to his death by Cthulhu?

kinda, the schmo is the christian god. Not only will Cthulhu devour the earth, but also all the petty gods that surround the pale blue green orb.

[c4ts]

http://www.angelfire.com/alt/c4ts/index.html

Cthulhu is real! The website proves it!

[Ceinwyn]

http://img35.exs.cx/img35/3382/SPgod.png

:D

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by c4ts
http://www.angelfire.com/alt/c4ts/index.html

Cthulhu is real! The website proves it!
Sorry, those fonts, while appreciably large, are not quite big enough to fully convince me. Also, I feel your argument suffers from a lack of multiple exclamation marks.

[HarryKeogh]

I think of this

http://www.melemarce.com/Miti_passati/Immagini/davhasselhoff_dave13.jpg

enjoy your lunch!

[c4ts]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
Sorry, those fonts, while appreciably large, are not quite big enough to fully convince me. Also, I feel your argument suffers from a lack of multiple exclamation marks.

Damn! I forgot that shouting makes things true!

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Originally posted by HarryKeogh
I think of this

http://www.melemarce.com/Miti_passati/Immagini/davhasselhoff_dave13.jpg

enjoy your lunch!

My eyes are burning.... arggggggg the pain!

[Anders]

I see nooooothing, a complete blank! Nothing there anymore. I used to see the good old white beareded man, wearing white, but that was way back when I used to be x-ians.

Awful times, praying to keep the ghosts away, been afraid of demons, etc, etc.

Soooo pieceful know to be an atheist!

[imagineNoReligion]

Ever since I was a small child, I've had the image of God as a white guy with black eyes and black unkempt hair.

I have no idea where I got this image. I think that I formed that image before I had seen the more traditional image of God.

I was basically forced to go to Sunday school from a young age, I guess that is why I formed my own image, as I was too young to have been exposed much to the stereotypical image.

[Riddick]

Originally posted by Cosmo
I usually think of the standard cloud-surrounded bearded old white guy, but I always see him as being spitting mad about the (growing) number of people who don't even think he exists. :D
He's spitting tobacco

[Atlas]

True story.

Back in the 73 when I was 20 I was invited to God's place.

If you'd have seen us together you'd have recognized me as the little guy and God looked like the sun.

I must've done something wrong - I was never invited back.

But I did get a good look at God and that's how I picture God.

Very very big and spherical and bright and burning like the sun.

[Earthborn]

Here (http://imageserver.literatuurplein.nl/imageservlet/images/image?image=9025412696.jpg) is the cover of an interesting book about the image of God I once flipped through in a bookstore. It contains children's drawings of how they imagine God. Of course the familiar guy with beard is in there, but the author was not afraid to present the variety of ideas about God. Some children depicted God as a gruesome monster, or as a hooligan shouting profanities (those profanities are not censored in any way). Other children had quite sophiticated ideas about God. One draw nothing but a cloud, while another simply drew some geometric shapes.

The author sorted the pictures into categories and discusses them from a theological/philosophical viewpoint. He shows that these children intuitively understand many concepts of God that theologians and philosophers have come up with, even concepts that make God into an abstraction. Very interesting book. I should have bought it.

[Anders]

Originally posted by Atlas
True story.

Back in the 73 when I was 20 I was invited to God's place.

If you'd have seen us together you'd have recognized me as the little guy and God looked like the sun.

I must've done something wrong - I was never invited back.

But I did get a good look at God and that's how I picture God.

Very very big and spherical and bright and burning like the sun.
I knew IT! It is Aton (Egyptian god, the sun disc, predecessor to all mono-estic religons) who is the lord supreme!

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Anders
I knew IT! It is Aton (Egyptian god, the sun disc, predecessor to all mono-estic religons) who is the lord supreme! http://www.gewo.applet.cz/nalim/aton.jpg

Close... I was like in the same room though. God was much bigger than his picture above. Very sun like except for the heat and gravity. Instead there was more of a feeling of complete satisfaction - like there was nothing else to be asked for.

Very nice. I was bummed I never made callbacks.

[crocodile deathroll]

A yellow triangle drawn in chalk on top of the school blackboard with white chalked lines radiating out from it.
Well that was the image of god as the old nuns taught to us little kids at the time and it still kind of sticks.

Any one get this impression of it/him/her

CDR

[The Mighty Thor]

Originally posted by crocodile deathroll
A yellow triangle drawn in chalk on top of the school blackboard with white chalked lines radiating out from it.
Well that was the image of god as the old nuns taught to us little kids at the time and it still kind of sticks.

Any one get this impression of it/him/her

CDR

Who would have guessed it? Nuns are Freemasons!:)

[Jellby]

I see this: http://www.eljueves.es/jueves_tv/episodiosdiosmio/ep15.swf (caution, flash movie)

[sackett]

Originally posted by Earthborn
. . . . children intuitively understand many concepts of God that theologians and philosophers have come up with, even concepts that make God into an abstraction. . . .
This suggests that God is a pretty childish conception, and that the theologians and philosophers have been doing little more than play at dolly-and-dishes all this time.

Interesting post, E-born.

[sackett]

God looks a little like my father in an angry mood, if my father had had a beard.

But my childish purity of conception (see Earthborn's post above) was spoiled very early in life by exposure to the most vulgar sort of Catholic iconography, via the old San Francisco Examiner. It ran 4-color ads for all kinds of Catholic products, including holy cards with pictures of how "God chooseth Joseph" and stuff like that. Gross idolatry it was, and shocking to a six-year-old who'd been told that pictures of God were VERY WRONG! So the white beard and flowing robe image is printed pretty indelibly on what I laughingly call my psyche.

[crocodile deathroll]

He looked kind of like this:

[Cosmo]

That made me think of this:

http://images.amazon.com/images/G/covers/B/00/000/2U8/B000002U82.l.gif

:D

[Bruce]

Originally posted by crocodile deathroll
He looked kind of like this:

Look kind of like my old girlfriend. She didn't like to shave either. :D

[wittgenst3in]

Originally posted by Atlas
http://www.gewo.applet.cz/nalim/aton.jpg

Sun shmun. She's clearly in the shower adjusting the water flow(they took forever to get right before flick-mixer taps were invented). A servant is washing her back.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by wittgenst3in
Sun shmun. She's clearly in the shower adjusting the water flow(they took forever to get right before flick-mixer taps were invented). A servant is washing her back. Arrgh, you're right. What gave you the clue? The Marge Simpson bathing cap? :D

[AWPrime]

Originally posted by Ceinwyn
http://img35.exs.cx/img35/3382/SPgod.png

:D

Me too.:D